If everyone is always telling you to get away from your computer and out into the sun, this year's FILE (Electronic Language International Festival) may be just what you need. Opening in Sao Paulo, Brazil, August 13, and running through the 24th, FILE gives attendees a chance to experience the work of some top artists in the new media art field, including American hypertext artist Michael Joyce, California-based Natalie Bookchin and Briton Simon Biggs. The event, held at Cidade Universit

UK based art collective Greyworld have been making captivating public
installations in urban space since the late 1980s. Their most recent
project, 'The Game' turns London's Jubilee Gardens into an interactive
birds-eye-view portrait of horror film director Alfred Hitchcock. Sensitive
tiles on the ground trigger sound and imagery based on the proximity of
visitors' movements. The space is intended for both interaction and
contemplation, although collaboration with other patrons is important in
order to realise the work's full impact. Their web site also documents their unique
'layer' installations, wherein sensors embedded in blue carpet-covered
tunnels and bridges across the UK create sound
environments based on foot traffic. Look around their web site, it's never a grey day.
-Jonah Brucker-Cohen

Artists who create moving image art for the internet can enter their work into the Sundance Online Film Festival, which in turn feeds into the (offline) Sundance Film Festival. Open to all formats (e.g. Flash, film, analog/digital video, animation, etc.), entries, due in September 12, must be less than 20 minutes in length, in English or featuring English sub-titles. Starting in December, juries will grant awards across Animation, New Form, Short Form and Gallery genres, and online audiences will vote to distribute other prizes. Two caveats -- there is a submission fee -- and if your work is currently screening online, it's not eligible: Sundance is looking for projects that have not previously been available to the public. I suppose that means hacked dupes of the Matrix won't be in the running. -- Rachel Greene

Contemporary net art consumers likely know The Bomb Project by American artist Joy Garnett as a strapping resource for all things nuclear-related. As it happens, Garnett was not the first artist to focus on the web as a means of organizing nuclear-related images, links, and documentation. Dutch artist Akke Wagenaar has recently re-published her 1995 artwork of the same premise, The Hiroshima Project. Comparing the two one notes that web graphics and aesthetics of 1995 next to those of today are akin to apples and oranges. Furthermore, Wagenaar took a more artistic approach to arranging elements of data using hypertext and animation while Garnett approximates a professional web portal replete with high quality, astonishing images. Moving beyond the formal and engaging with the internal content of these grave projects -- detailed and devastating information -- questions multiply and explode. -- Rachel Greene

Buying books online is too easy. Even if you don't have a clue what you want to read, there's always a software agent to suggest something based on your previous purchases or considerations. LA-based artist Angie Waller is putting this information to the test with her new book 'Data Mining the Amazon.' In it, she catalogues and graphs relationships between books and music bought on Amazon.com. Focusing on political icons in the US and abroad, the results are fascinating. For instance, visitors who bought 'All the Best, George Bush' tended to purchase CDs by Creed. Research also shows that readers of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' were often fans of the Australian 70s band the Bee Gees.

America's most endearing geek chic collectives, PaperRad and Beige Programming Ensemble, along with their digi-rock n' rave bands, Extreme Animals and Dr. Doo (Paper Rad) and the 8-Bit Construction Set (BEIGE) recently embarked on their Summer of HTML tour. Events kicked off with BEIGE member Cory Arcangel's exhibition of hacked computer cartridges and prints at TEAM Gallery in Chelsea, New York. The 8 Bit Construction Set performed too -- their video act uses outmoded 8-bit technologies (such as Nintendo and Commodore 69 gaming systems) to generate electronic music and digital abstractions. PaperRad's bands Extreme Animals and Dr. Doo played audio thrash in front of Flash cartoons that sample diverse pop-cultural sources to express states of consumer ecstasy. If all that weren't enough, Power Point presentations about the history of computing and 90's MTV enhance the colorful scene. Catch the North American tour while you can -- details on the site. - Matt Wolf

Who says computer geeks aren't romantic? From September 8 through 12, visit ICHIM 03, the seventh International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting, in Paris, France. Held at the celebrated museum the Louvre, ICHIM 03 offers a range of workshops on digital art and life, including some on creative and curatorial concerns, as well as a

The future of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are at the heart of 'Teknolust,' a new film from Lynn Hershman Leeson and starring Tilda Swinton. It's a cyber-fi story about SRAs (Self Replicating Automatons) - intelligent life forms that evolve to the point where they have the capacity to fall in love. Shot with the new 24p digital high definition camera, Teknolust features an artificial intelligent web agent, whom you can also meet in 'real life' on her web site, www.agentruby.com. You are invited to chat Eliza-style with Ruby to help her reach her goal of becoming more intelligent than humans, and you can check back regularly to see how she's improving. 'Teknolust' the movie opens today, August 22, in San Francisco. - Helen Varley Jamieson.

American TV network Bravo has a new gay reality television program -- 'Boy Meets Boy' -- that does TV-dating with a twist. The premise: handsome James lives in luxurious accommodations with 15 potential mates. At the end of each episode James rejects a few suitors based on his own romantic inklings. But, what the leading man doesn't know is that some of the candidates are actually straight. Part gay dating fascism and another part mainstream 'gaydar' bootcamp, the show follows from the post-'Ellen' cultural milieu. Looking backwards, mid-1990s queer e-zine favorite Blairmag played with similar themes in the online game 'Gay or Eurotrash?' and 'Lesbian or German Lady?' The Blair team went voyeur and gathered a collection of street photos at the Rockefeller Center tourist hub in New York City. In the web-based game, users guess if the unsuspecting subjects of these photos are gay or eurotrash / lesbian or German ladies. One click reveals the diagnosis professed by a discerning panel of homo-experts. Blarimag's playful appropriation of stereotypes coded (literally) an insider cruising logic and now seems a historical artifact -- indeed, an artifact made recognizable through the advent of mainstream gay television. - Matt Wolf